Because Dogs Like to Eat Out, Too

Here's your nightly math! Just 5 quick minutes of number fun for kids and parents at home. Read a cool fun fact, followed by math riddles at different levels so everyone can jump in. Your kids will love you for it.

Because Dogs Like to Eat Out, Too

It’s fun to eat at a restaurant, since each person can choose anything he’d like from the menu. And that matters a lot if your dog is coming along, too. This list shares 10 restaurants around the U.S. that allow dogs as customers — and at some of these places, the food for dogs is almost as fancy as the people food. At Besa Grill in Florida, dogs eat meatballs that look pretty good; you might want to try them, too. At Hamburger Heaven, also in Florida, your dog might eat salmon while you eat a burger, but maybe you’ll switch plates halfway through to try each other’s meal. And at Art and Soul in Washington, D.C., they serve steak to both the people and the pooches. If you want to treat your dog right, try dining out together — if he wasn’t already, your dog will be your best friend for life.

Wee ones: If you and your dog walk into a restaurant, how many legs do you have together?

Little kids: If at Besa your dog eats 5 meatballs and you eat 2, how many have you eaten together? Bonus: How many more do you have to eat to make the total a dozen?

Big kids: If you order a 12-oz steak at Art and Soul and your pet beagle and pet poodle each order an 8-oz T-bone, how many ounces of steak do you all chow down? Bonus: If the wait at Hamburger Heaven tonight is 17 minutes for a table for people but twice as long for people with dogs, when will you get to eat if you and your pets arrive at 6:30 pm?

The sky’s the limit: If your poodle has tried 8 of the 10 doggie restaurants, your beagle has tried 6 of the 10, and you’ve tried 7 of the 10, what’s the smallest number of restaurants that must have been tried by all 3 of you so far? (Assume that you didn’t drive them to the others…)

The sky’s the limit: 1 doggie restaurant. There are only 2 restaurants your poodle hasn’t tried, so your beagle had to overlap 4 of its 6 with the poodle. That leaves only 6 that haven’t been tried by both, so if you’ve tried 7, even if you overlap all 6 that still leaves 1 that you go to that wasn’t visited by both of them.

About the Author

Laura Bilodeau Overdeck is founder and president of Bedtime Math Foundation. Her goal is to make math as playful for kids as it was for her when she was a child. Her mom had Laura baking while still in diapers, and her dad had her using power tools at a very unsafe age, measuring lengths, widths and angles in the process. Armed with this early love of numbers, Laura went on to get a BA in astrophysics from Princeton University, and an MBA from the Wharton School of Business; she continues to star-gaze today. Laura’s other interests include her three lively children, chocolate, extreme vehicles, and Lego Mindstorms.